Information abundance, like all markets of abundance, is bad for the average person but great for a small number of people
Food Abundance
Americans are overweight, not because of scarcity but because of abundance — just like the news
- At the same time, wealthy and health-conscious Americans have never been in better physical shape.
Get in Tip-Top Shape
Due to the abundance of information, the median information consumer is no better off than they used to be while the smartest people are smarter than they’ve ever been
- Careful consumers use the information at their fingertips to compound their wisdom while compulsive ones drown in a volcano of fire-burning rage
Food and Information: Gresham’s Law
On the Internet, low-quality content drives out high-quality content, as the most wide-read articles are polarizing and emotionally jarring
- The hyper-competition for advertising dollars has slashed the average quality of a news article
- True to Gresham’s Law, low-quality information drives out high-quality information
Succeeding in a World of Information Abundance
The pendulum of human attention has swung too far in the direction of compulsive consumption of superficial news
- The internet is filled with high-quality information, so savvy consumers have access to more high-quality knowledge
